The use of traditional funeral services is on the decline both in Canada and the United States. There’s a lot of speculation as to why this is occurring, but one might attribute this decline to a confluence of various factors: rising funeral costs, declining religiosity, and environmental concerns may all play a role.  The result of this seismic shift in the industry is that a lot more cremations are being done today than were in the past. According to the Cremation Association of North America, an incredible 72.1% of Canadian memorial services included cremation in 2018. 

Cremation solves a lot of the problems inherent in a traditional burial. The cost of cremation is substantially less than the cost of burial. Declining religiosity means religions that are averse to the practice have less of an impact on decisions to cremate. Somewhat surprisingly, cremation is in many ways more environmentally friendly than traditional burials. Though a lot of fuel is expended during cremation, funerals often use caskets that aren’t biodegradable and embalming fluids that degrade very slowly. The fluids are toxic and can sometimes leach into the water table, which is very hazardous. 

Now that we’ve established that cremation is on the rise, we can begin to look into why we’re seeing more memorial forests. Cremation is, in and of itself, unceremonious, so people have begun to create rituals to honour the lives of those who have been cremated. Ash scattering ceremonies are among the most popular of these rituals - you bring your loved one’s remains to a place that was meaningful to them and scatter a small number of those ashes there. Often, a permit is required to perform this ritual but it remains a meaningful way of remembering a loved one.

In our day and age, anytime there’s an industry disruptor, you’d better believe there will be a hundred companies popping up to try to capitalize on the disruption. There are a number of companies that have started offering a wide variety of alternative ways of using the ashes from cremation. You might see anything from jewelry being created to a vinyl containing some words of encouragement from your loved one, or a favorite song you shared. One new concept gaining a lot of traction is the memorial forest.

One of the advantages of a traditional burial over cremation is that traditional burial offers a plot of land and a tombstone by which the deceased can be remembered. There are ways you can memorialize someone who has been cremated, but they aren’t as obvious. You don’t want to bury the ashes in a traditional plot; that takes up a lot of space for no reason. You could place the urn in a columbarium or mausoleum, but these places aren’t always the best memorials - the name of the deceased may be rather small and you may find it hard to gather family there or rest and contemplate in the area.

Going back to the aforementioned memorial forests, having a tree is no doubt a good remembrance. Where that tree is to be placed, however, isn’t always an easy question to answer. When it’s planted, will there be a plaque in memory of the deceased? What’s more, what guarantee do you have that the place the tree has been planted won’t be sold to developers? The appeal of tombstones and memorial sites like graveyards is their longevity; you can see the tombstones of family members you weren’t even alive to know.

The solution to all of these problems can be found in memorial forests. Reputable memorial forests will all have a number of features in common. First, they’ll give you a number of different trees to choose from; these trees will be non-invasive species that are a natural part of the ecosystem of the region. This ensures that the memorial forest’s activities 

The second thing a memorial forest will do is provide you with a commemorative piece like a plaque near the tree you’ve planted in order to memorialize your loved one. More often than not, the type of memorial and its appearance can be customized to suit your needs. In our case, you can customize the plaque with personalized inscriptions; take a look at some examples. 

The final thing a memorial forest should do is have some type of succession plan to ensure that, even if the owners of the forest sell the business, the memorial will be maintained. This is often accomplished through partnerships with local government whose members have a vested interest in upkeeping the forest - both for its positive environmental impacts and its historical importance. In our case, this partnership is with the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation, who will keep the forest intact should we stop running the business. A donation of the archives would also be made to the Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan. 

Memorial forests, then, are on the uprise because they solve a lot of the problems that both traditional burial and cremation have because they are environmentally friendly and often cost less than a traditional burial. They can be suitable for people with all kinds of different spirituality, and they offer a place where friends and family can remember their loved ones for generations to come. 

When a death occurs, it can be incredibly challenging to make all of the decisions involved with memorial planning at once. While non-traditional funerals are on the rise, there is still a staggeringly small number of people who pre-plan their funerals. After reading this article, if you’re interested in all of the benefits of a memorial forest, give us a call and we’ll help create the right remembrance for your loved one. Death is often hard to talk about and it can be hard to think about, but planning ahead can truly help give you a sense of peace.